


Bar Fight With My Heart

by nicalyse



Series: Cast Iron Hearts [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Genderswap, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:04:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3615966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicalyse/pseuds/nicalyse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a so-called Twitter feud.</p><p>(Another one, and this one was one hundred percent not on purpose, Louis swears.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bar Fight With My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even sure what I'm doing with my life any more. This hasn't been Brit-picked; please forgive my Americanisms.

It starts with a so-called Twitter feud.

(Another one, and this one was one hundred percent not on purpose, Louis swears.)

 _Is it autumn yet?_ she'd tweeted that morning, innocently enough. She'd woken sweating in her bunk on the bus, the air conditioning on the blink and the oppressive humidity of the American south seeping in to ruin her day before it even started. How was she to have known that only an hour earlier Nick Grimshaw had tweeted _Nothing better than a beautiful summer's day!_? For fuck's sake, she doesn't even follow Nick on Twitter.

"You know the fans don't care," Niall says when Louis says just that, looking at Louis upside down, her legs propped up on the back of one of the sofas in the bus lounge while her head dangles an inch above the floor, her hair a bleach blonde puddle. "They think the two of you do things to get at each other on purpose."

"We don't." Louis turns to glare when Liam lets out a quiet scoff. "What? We don't!"

"You have too," Zayn says. She doesn't even bother to look up from her Kindle.

"Well, I didn't this time!"

"What do they want you to do?" Liam asks in her soft, let's-all-stay-calm voice. The voice has something like a ninety-eight percent success rate; only Niall (who went right ahead and had that panic attack that had been building) and Zayn (who went ahead and punched the pap who caused Niall's panic attack in the face) have ever been able to resist it.

Louis flops onto the sofa opposite Niall with a huff, tucking herself into the corner. "They're still considering the options," she parrots the PR rep that had called her after #LouisVsNick had started trending on Twitter again. "Fucking Twitter," she mumbles under her breath.

None of the girls say anything, but Zayn wraps her slender fingers around Louis' left ankle, her thumb pressing just over the screw that they all - except Niall - have inked in that same spot. She still doesn't look up from her Kindle.

*

Honestly, she doesn't have the energy or the desire to nurse a feud with Nick Grimshaw. Nick is insufferable, attention-seeking hipster cow, and Louis is busy with her stadium tour, thanks.

Unfortunately, management doesn't agree.

"They've invited Nick to the last show in LA," Louis announces, climbing back onto the bus, after she gets off the phone (again) with Jenna from PR.

"Harry told us," Liam answers, plucking a hoodie from one of the chairs and tugging it over her head. It has the name of an American university Louis' never heard of emblazoned across the chest; Louis suspects that Niall stole it from a guy she hooked up with, but Niall swears she doesn't know where it came from. "Nick texted her."

"Where is she?" 

"Hanging out with Lou on the other bus," Niall answers. "Do you want tea?"

"Yes. Nick's coming to your party in Vegas, too."

Niall shrugs, flicking on the kettle and reaching into the cabinet for teabags. "I like Nick. She's fun."

Louis scowls, but says nothing, flopping onto the sofa.

"We're going to watch a film, if you want to watch with us," Liam offers, more tentative than usual.

"Maybe. What's Zayn doing?"

Liam makes a face. "She said she was going to bed, but--"

"Right," Louis interrupts. "A film sounds fine. What are we watching?"

" _Marie Antoinette_."

"Again, Liam?" Louis groans.

"It's pretty and I like it," Liam insists. "And it's my turn to pick."

"It just makes me want to eat cake," Louis grumbles.

*

Harry squeals when security leads Nick into the greenroom, narrowly escaping getting stabbed in the eye with a mascara wand when she flails her way out of the makeup chair, launching herself across the room and into Nick's waiting arms.

Louis very carefully does not roll her eyes, eating the last few raspberries from the bowl in her lap before standing, licking the juice from her fingers as she tosses her rubbish in the bin. "Hello, Nick," she greets, just loud enough to be heard over Harry's giggles.

"Louis," Nick replies, pulling back from Harry. "It's good to see you."

Nick's legs, long and skinny and a bit pale, are on display beneath the hem of her floral sundress, and her hair is pulled over one shoulder, worked into a heavy, complicated braid that's falling apart a little. "You, too."

"Haz, get back over here so I can finish you," Lou calls. "You can flirt with Grimmy later."

Harry gives Nick an exaggerated wink - which looks particularly ridiculous with false lashes on just one eye - and heads back to the chair, leaving Louis effectively alone with Nick.

"Did you come here straight from the airport?" 

"I did," Nick confirms. "Why, do I look like shit?"

Her eye makeup is a bit smudged, but, "No. Just...there's food, there, if you're hungry," Louis says, gesturing to the table at the back wall, "or we can have something brought in, if you like."

"Oh." She looks as wrong-footed as Louis feels, but only for a moment. "Thanks."

Niall and Zayn burst into the room, all flailing limbs and giggles. Niall's hair is a huge, wavy mess. Zayn, naturally, looks beautiful despite not having had her hair or makeup done yet. "Grimmy!" Niall exclaims, blinding the room with a smile. "You're here and it's my birthday!"

"I suppose that explains the cupcakes," Nick laughs.

They're carrying a dozen cupcakes between them, three in each hand, iced in shades of blue and yellow. "Paul must've ordered them for after the show," Zayn answers, going to set hers on the edge of Lou's makeup table, ignoring her protests.

"Didn't hide them very well, did he?" Niall lets Louis and Nick each take a cupcake before she goes to pass out the rest, licking icing from her hands as she goes.

Before it's all said and done, Lou has told off Harry for ruining her lipstick, Louis has stained one of Liam's white tee shirts with blue icing, there's icing in the end of Nick's braid, and the only reason Janie doesn't yell at Niall for burning icing onto the plate of one of the flat irons is because it's her birthday. It's hardly atypical of One Direction before a show, and by the time they take the stage, they're pulled together and professional as always, albeit buzzing from a sugar high.

*

Just enough photos from Niall's birthday celebration are "leaked" to make sure that Louis and Nick are seen having fun together, but only a few fan snaps of the group of them completely pissed make the rounds. Nick goes back to London and talks about the party on the Breakfast Show, lamenting that Liam still hasn't succumbed to her romantic overtures.

Louis doesn't really think about Nick again until she gets a call from PR Jenna a few days before the end of the tour. She's half-asleep when she answers the phone, tucked into her bunk, trying to sleep away the cold she can feel coming on. It happens at the end of every tour, and this time Louis is determined not to be sick when she finally gets home.

"What's up?" Louis asks, cutting Jenna off when she tries for some pleasantries.

"I'm calling about Nick Grimshaw," Jenna replies after a beat. "I'm sure you girls are more than capable of coming up with plans for yourselves, but if you'd rather not, we can put some things together for you. Easy, friendly things, you know, lunch or dri--"

"Wait," Louis interrupts, sitting up on her elbows as much as she can in the cramped bunk. "What are you talking about? Plans with Nick Grimshaw?"

"You agreed to this, Louis. Weeks ago."

"Yeah, and then she came to LA and we all went out in Vegas, and now it's done."

"It isn't done," Jenna says flatly. "Nick going out for Niall's party was a great first step, but that's all it was. A first step. If we want people to believe that the two of you are friends, you're going to have to be seen together without any of the other girls as a buffer."

"I don't understand why everyone's so concerned about my friendship with Nick."

"Neither do I, if I'm in honest, but they are. The fans care, and this feud with Nick, real or not, just adds fuel to the insinuations that you behave like a diva."

Louis hates the diva thing, no matter how many times Liam and Niall quote that Beyonce song. Louis doesn't stand for her band or her girls being mistreated or disrespected, hasn't from day one, and is always the first to speak up when it happens. For that, she's been branded a diva, and if that was all it was, it might be okay. But when she told off The Wanted for talking shit to and about Zayn on Twitter, people said it was because she was stuck up or jealous (opposite ends of the spectrum, that). And when it got out that she'd asked security to make sure that there was more of a buffer between the band and the fans for the sake of Niall's claustrophobia, she was accused of trying to distance herself from the fans, as if they didn't all make it a point to do whatever they reasonably could to be available to the fans who came out to see them.

And the feuds with Nick. Louis had been accused of everything from being jealous of Nick and Harry's friendship (admittedly a little bit true) to thinking that Nick wasn't good enough to do the Breakfast Show (Louis doesn't really care one way or the other) to hating it when other women are successful (which doesn't even make bloody sense). Louis isn't exactly friends with Nick, but she doesn't hate her either, and it's annoying that everyone keeps assuming that she even _cares_.

"Fine," Louis bites out. "I will make plans with Nick. But I'm spending a week in Doncaster first."

"Of course. Give me a call when you have something set with Nick, so we can make sure that you're seen together."

"Sure. I'm happy to play into your publicity stunt."

Jenna doesn't quite manage to mask her sigh. "Goodbye, Louis."

Louis tosses her phone to the foot of her bunk, leaving it there when she slips out. She snags one of Harry's hoodies from her open bunk, the one with the teddy bear ears on the hood, and zips herself in, shuffling toward the noise of the lounge. She finds Liam and Zayn watching episodes of _Parks and Recreation_ they've all seen a dozen times. Zayn has a sketchbook in her lap, so Louis flops down next to Liam, snuggling into her side.

"What's wrong, dove?" she asks.

"I am not a diva," Louis mumbles, pouting even as Liam coos.

"Of course you aren't," she says, scritching at the top of Louis' head between the teddy bear ears.

*

The most maddening thing about her diva reputation is that the biggest contributing factors aren't anything she actually did.

Louis met Alexander through a mutual friend - one of the hairstylists from X Factor - and they hit it off, bonding over football and music and how much they both loved being in London. Louis had had a cocktail or four that night, and she didn't protest when he crowded her up against the wall at the end of the dark hallway that led to the loos, kissing her with the taste of gin on his tongue.

Alexander was tall, inches taller than Louis even when she wore heels, with broad shoulders and hands that engulfed Louis'. He was exceedingly attractive, with dark hair and dark eyes, and smart, studying business at uni. 

They went to a Chelsea game together and got papped outside of a club with some of his uni friends, and it was all very casual and simple. And when he told her that he wanted to try the exclusive thing, it was easy for Louis to say yes.

It was easy with Alexander. It was always easy with Alexander, even when he was bogged down with uni work and Louis was on the other side of the world on tour. They rarely argued, and only twice did they actually fight: the first time when he admitted that he had cheated on her while she was away on tour, for which she forgave him, and the second when she told him that she wasn't taking him as her date to the premiere of their film.

Alexander broke up with Louis over the phone. She was in Australia, four days into a six-week tour leg, and her boyfriend of two years dumped her over the phone.

And then he started talking to the media.

The stories always referred to, "a source close to the former couple," or, "a One Direction insider," but Louis knew that it was Alexander himself. But she couldn't prove it and neither could management, so he got away with telling the world that Louis was cold and distant, bratty and prone to tantrums when she didn't get her way. One particularly nasty article even said that he thought she was jealous of the other girls in the band because she was, "the ugly one."

And it all stuck, no matter what schemes PR cooked up to attempt to make Louis look warm and soft and less forceful than she is. Now, any time Louis is seen being anything other than sweetness and light, she's being a diva. 

The breakup hurt less than the fallout, and that was Louis' first clue that she and Alexander probably shouldn't have been together in the first place. That and the fact that the kisses she and Harry had stolen back in the X Factor house had gotten her hotter than any she'd ever shared with her boyfriend.

But that's another can of worms entirely, one that Louis is far too busy to be opening now.

*

"I suppose I should thank you for doing this. I know you didn't have to."

Nick arches one neatly-groomed eyebrow. "It's not exactly a hardship, having lunch with you." She looks back down at the menu. "But if you want me to complain, you couldn't have picked a restaurant with a wine list?"

Louis snorts a surprised little laugh. "You can blame Liam for that, actually. She suggested the place."

"Really? I'd have expected more of Ms. Payne," Nick says evenly, setting her menu on the table and pushing her hair back over one shoulder. It's a loose mass of half-formed curls, almost messy enough to make Louis wonder if she'd even bothered to comb it. Louis' own hair could never look like that.

"Quite the disappointment, our Liam."

"You've just been to visit your family, haven't you?" Nick asks after the waiter has come to take their order. "How are the babies?"

"They're enormous compared to the last time I saw them, and I still can't believe how small they are," Louis answers honestly. "And now that I've finally got the brother I always wanted, I don't know what to do with him."

Nick shrugs. "Don't ask me. I'm rubbish with babies. And boys," she quips.

"Harry mentioned that you were seeing someone new," Louis lies. She saw when she googled Nick this morning, lying in bed and wishing that she had someone to bring her tea so she didn't have to get up and make it herself. Nick had been papped outside of some club, holding hands with a bleach blonde model, the same shade of fluorescent pink lipstick smudged around both of their mouths.

"That might be overstating the facts a bit," Nick answers lightly. "We've spent a few evenings together."

"One of your models then," Louis says. Her tone is as light as Nick's, but it's a bit of a snipe; Nick has a reputation for collecting models.

"Don't be hateful, Louis." Nick sits back in her chair when the waiter comes to set their plates in front of them. "Nothing wrong with appreciating beautiful women." She winks up at the waiter, who has to bite back a smile when he asks if they need anything else.

Neither Nick nor Louis say anything for a long moment after he's gone. Louis spears a cherry tomato from her salad hatefully, jealous of the pile of chips on Nick's plate.

"Right," Nick finally says, setting her fork on the side of her plate and sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. "I know this just a publicity stunt for you," she says baldly, "but it doesn't have to be terrible. Whatever the media says, I don't really hate you, and I don't think that you hate me either."

"I don't," Louis puts in softly. Nick's lips curve in a gentle smile.

"Right," she says again. "So let's make the best of this, shall we? Try actually being friends?"

"All right." Louis gives in to temptation, reaching across the table to snag a chip from Nick's plate. "But you should know, I'm still going to think you're an insufferable hipster, even if we are friends."

"That's fine." She swats at Louis' hand when Louis tries to steal a second chip. "You'll always be a bratty popstar to me."

Louis smiles, bright and sincere, reaching across the table to steal a chip from Nick's plate. "So long as we understand each other."

*

He's not subtle at all, the pap who catches Louis outside the pub where she's meeting Nick and Harry. But then, it's not like she didn't know he was going to be there.

She wouldn't have bothered with fixing her hair if there'd been even the slightest chance she wouldn't be photographed.

"We ordered margaritas," Nick announces when Louis makes her way to their booth at the back of the pub. She's wearing a raggedy plaid shirt and has her hair all piled on top of her head. It's annoying how good she looks.

"And nachos!" Harry adds helpfully.

"Bitch," Louis says without any heat. She can't spend this entire break drinking and eating junk; their trainer will have her head. She turns her smile to Nick's friend Aimee, who she's met once or twice before. "All right, Aimee?"

Aimee gestures with her drink. "Better after I've had a few of these."

"I'd better catch up then," Louis says, sliding into the booth in the empty seat beside Nick, who pours her a glass from the pitcher at the center of the table. "Thanks."

"Every day is improved by margaritas, and I could do with some improvement."

The drink is strong, bitter tequila lingering beneath the sharp of the lime. "Bad day?"

Nick shrugs a slender shoulder. "Some famous men are dicks," she says plainly. "It's nothing I can't handle."

Louis slept through the Breakfast Show this morning, like most mornings, and has no idea who Nick's guest was. Still, "Most men are dicks."

"I'll drink to that," Nick says, tapping her glass against Louis'.

"We should do shots," Harry suggests. Aimee, Nick, and Louis all make faces.

"It's barely half-five, Haz," Nick says.

"And it's Wednesday," Aimee adds.

"I haven't eaten anything today. I've only been awake for a few hours," Louis explains when Nick shoots her a look. She's allowed to sleep until half-one when she's on a break.

Harry ignores them all, flagging down their waitress to order a round of shots. "We'll get pissed and eat our weight in melted cheese," she says, gleeful in a way that only Harry can be.

After two shots, three margaritas, and half a plate of nachos, Louis finds herself listing into Nick's side. Nick's warm and her shirt is very soft against Louis' bare arm. She forces herself upright, then puts her elbow on the table and leans on it heavily, gazing up at Nick. "How's your model then?" Louis asks, in the spirit of friendship.

"My model?" There's a moment of thoughtful frowning before Nick's eyes widen in recognition. "Oh, she's gone. Working in Austria. Or Australia." She pauses a moment, thinking, before waving it off. "Either way, gone. I was devastated for an hour or so, but I think I've recovered nicely." She wraps her lips around her straw and sips, exaggerated. "On to the next one."

"Hear hear!" Aimee crows, as if she and Harry have been listening instead of discussing the merits of solid perfumes.

"What about you then?" Nick asks Louis when Aimee and Harry have returned to their conversation. "We haven't heard anything since you got rid of that wanker."

Louis pokes at the melting ice in her glass with her straw. "That isn't quite how it happened," she mumbles, more embarrassed than drunk.

"Sure it is," Nick replies, like her saying so makes it true. Louis hums, considering how much of the truth Nick actually knows, and Nick is quiet for a moment before snatching up her phone in a rush. "I saw something and thought of you the other day." She taps around for a moment before leaning closer to Louis so they can both see the screen. There's a video, a soft-looking little rabbit in a pen with a tiny baby goat. They're both hopping around, like they're celebrating something or they've been fed sugar. An unimpressed cat watches from a rail.

"This made you think of me?" Louis asks dubiously.

Nick hums. "You're the bunny, and Harry's the goat."

Louis snorts an inelegant laugh. "And the cat?"

Nick expression is delighted. "Zayn, of course."

*

Louis is sat in the backseat of a car with Nick, letting herself be driven into what appears to be a sort-of-dodgy London neighborhood she's never been to before.

"Where the fuck are you taking me?"

Nick rolls her eyes. "Just trust me, would you?"

"I agreed to getting a manicure, not getting mugged, Grimshaw." She plucks at the collar of her jacket. "This is Balenciaga."

"Jesus, you're a brat," Nick mumbles as the cab pulls up to the curb outside of a simple storefront. Louis eyes it critically; it's nothing special, but at least it's clean. "I've been coming here for years, and I've never had any problems."

"How did you even find this place?" Louis asks, climbing out of the cab behind Nick. "This doesn't seem like your sort of neighborhood."

Nick shoots her a sharp-eyed glance. "One of the interns told me about it when I first started at Radio 1. Best manicures I've ever had, and they're only fifteen pounds."

Louis has gotten more professional manicures in the last five years than she cares to think about, and from some very famous names in the nail industry, however one manages to become that. Before X Factor, she'd never had a proper manicure; now they're a thing she has to do, just another part of her job, neither good nor bad.

But it _is_ a good manicure. The salon is immaculately clean, but doesn't feel sterile, and it has good energy, a balance between the airy, zen spas that Harry prefers and the ultra-trendy places Lottie always wants Louis to take her to. They have a wide selection of brands and colors to choose from, and the tech gives Louis a hand massage that releases tension all the way through her neck and shoulders, like a miracle.

"I told you," Nick says from the next station.

"Don't be smug," Louis doesn't quite manage to snap.

"Not smug, just right."

Louis leaves the tech a one hundred percent tip, further enamored with her suggestion of a jade green polish with a high-gloss shine. She snaps a photo with her phone and tweets it with the caption, _'actually the best manicure ever?'_

"What do you think?" Nick asks, holding up both hands and waggling her fingers to show off her matte charcoal gray polish. Each of her ring fingers are embellished with a single gold stud. 

"Excuse me, Louis?" a girl interrupts before Louis can answer, smiling sheepishly when Louis turns. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if you would take a photo with me."

"Of course, love." She holds the phone to snap the photo, making a ridiculous duck face that the girl matches brilliantly.

"Thank you," she says, taking the phone back. "I love all you girls, but you're my favorite. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw you here with Nick."

"Thank you," Louis says sincerely. "You're very sweet."

Nick nudges her shoulder when they walk out of the salon, climbing into the car from the service waiting at the curb. "You're her favorite."

Louis shakes her head. "Niall is everyone's favorite."

Later that evening gets a text from Nick that says, _If you've ruined my favorite salon I'll never forgive you_. There's a link to Sugarscape after. 

They were papped at the salon, of course, both smiling as they walked out, Louis' eyes hidden behind her sunglasses and Nick running her fingers through her hair. They've also published the selfie of Louis and the girl from the salon, who posted it to her Twitter and then told everyone in the world exactly where the salon is. It's entirely likely that the place will be overrun by fangirls.

Louis responds to the text with the umbrella-and-raindrops emoji, tossing her phone to the other end of the couch when the message has sent and going to kitchen to make herself a cup of tea.

*

_My model has moved on._ Nick sends in a text with a link to a post on an Australian gossip site.

_Are you heartbroken?_

_Utterly devastated. Should I drown my sorrows in vodka or fairy cakes?_

_Who says you have to choose?_

_You absolute treasure._

*

Starting promo for the new album in London is first time all five of the girls have been in the same place together since the tour ended a month ago. They do one of the morning shows and an interview with a website. They're all in a car on the way to a bookstore for a signing when Paul hands them each a pen and paper and asks them to write out their lists for personal guests at the album launch party the label is throwing them next week.

Louis jots down a few names, then pauses, her pen hovering above the paper. She nudges Harry with her elbow; Harry frowns when her pen slips, leaving a jagged line across her paper. "Are you inviting Nick?"

Harry blinks, then smiles, sly. "Do you want me to invite Nick?"

"If thought if you weren't, I would," Louis answers with a shrug.

"You like Nick!" Harry crows. "I knew you would if you just gave her a chance."

Louis rolls her eyes. "I never didn't like Nick."

Harry hums, looking at Louis with her big green eyes for longer than would be comfortable if if was anyone else. Louis, however, is immune to strangeness from any of her girls. "Sure. I'll invite Nick."

*

The days leading up to an album release are always crazy; they're shooting the video for the next single and doing promo, and because she apparently likes to make things harder on herself, Louis has been visiting X Factor to offer advice to one of this year's more promising contestants.

They do a handful of interviews the day of the release, but the party that evening is meant to be a celebration, not a promotion. It's fun, not business, and Louis intends to enjoy herself. They worked hard on this album, writing even more of it than ever before, recording while they were on tour, making sure their opinions on how they want to be presented were heard. They earned this, even if it is just a small thing.

She wears one of the options Caroline sent over for her, a black leather pencil skirt with a burgundy crop top and a pair of platform pumps. The shoes turn out to be terrible, her feet aching before she's even made it into the club the label rented out for the party; she'll have to get drunk as quickly as possible so as not to feel them any more. They're passing trays of champagne inside, and the bar is stocked, and when Louis finds Liam and suggests celebratory shots, she's game for it like she never would've been back at the beginning.

"It just isn't fair. You get an arse like that, and I've got nothing."

Louis' standing at the bar trying to decide what she wants to drink - she's not had more than one of anything all night - when she sees Nick for the first time. She looks good in slim trousers and a semi-sheer top, taller than usual in a pair of stilettos. Louis considers her for a moment. "There's nothing wrong with your arse."

Nick snorts, leaning against the bar. "That's just what every girl wants to hear."

"It's a very nice arse, Nick," she amends with a pointed roll of her eyes. "High, well-proportioned. It looks firm. May I?" She doesn't wait for a response before she reaches around to get a hand on the arse in question, giving it a proper squeeze. "Oh, yes, quite firm."

"Really, Tomlinson," Nick says, one eyebrow quirked. "You could buy a girl a drink."

"It's an open bar."

"Still." Nick's voice is very dry, but one corner of her mouth is twitching, like she's working very hard not to smile. "It's the least you can do."

Louis shakes her head but gestures for the bartender anyhow, ordering two vodka tonics. Before they're finished, Harry appears from nowhere, stumbling even in her flats. Nick bands an arm around her waist to keep her upright. 

Harry leans over to press a sloppy kiss to Louis' cheek, then turns her attention to Nick. "D'you remember when I told you about that guy? The one with the..." She trails off, widening her eyes to almost comical proportions.

Nick looks confused, then brightens with recognition. "The one from the club with--"

"Yes!" Harry interrupts. "That one! He's here!"

She begins to tug on Nick's arm, pulling her away from the bar. Nick shoots Louis an apologetic glance. "I'll be back for that drink, Lou!" she calls, allowing herself to be led across the room.

Louis, who watched this entire exchange with amusement, lifts one hand in a wave.

She stays there at the bar, nursing her vodka tonic while the second waits. She takes little sips of her drink, chatting with people as they come and go from the bar, watching the room and absolutely not waiting for Nick, who hasn't returned by the time Louis has finished her drink.

So she takes the second drink with her when she heads back into the crowd, wandering until she finds Zayn tucked into a corner booth with a couple of her Bradford friends.

"What's wrong, Lou?" she asks when Louis all but drapes herself across Zayn's lap.

"Nothing. Missed you."

Zayn slips an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, and that's where she stays until the end of the night, drinking champagne when it's brought to them until the room goes hazy and they both have a severe case of the giggles.

Everything is much less funny in the morning, when Louis wakes up in Zayn's bed with a pounding headache and terrible dry mouth.

"Oh god," she groans, squeezing her eyes closed against the light streaming through the open curtains. "How much champagne did we drink last night?"

"All of it," Zayn rasps. "Fucking all of it." Louis whines low in the back of her throat, tugging the duvet up over her head. "We should go to McDonald's."

Louis drives Zayn's car, both of them bundled into hoodies and hiding behind sunglasses even though a steady drizzle is falling. They order twice the food they can conceivably eat, then park at the back of the lot to eat.

Zayn takes a bite of her sandwich and whimpers, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. "I might vomit," she says in response to Louis' inquisitive glance. She chews slowly, swallowing and waiting a long moment before taking another bite.

Louis would laugh, but her head is pounding and someone else's hangover is only amusing when she isn't suffering herself.

She's halfway through her sandwich when she remembers talking to Nick at the party, how Nick had all but demanded that Louis get her drink and then toddled off with Harry, leaving Louis alone to entertain herself. Nick, who had complimented Louis' arse and let Louis cop a feel of her own, Nick, who had looked amazing with her hair pulled away from her face and her eyes all dark and smoky.

Nick, who Louis definitely doesn't hate, even if she is an insufferable hipster. For all that their hanging out was a publicity stunt, Louis has actually come to really like Nick. She thinks it's fair to say that they're friends, and Louis would like to spend more time with her.

"We should go get tattoos today," Louis says suddenly.

Zayn pauses mid-chew, turning to look at Louis. Her expression is unreadable with her eyes hidden behind her glasses, but after a long moment she shrugs one shoulder. "Yeah, okay."

*

She's sitting on a green room couch watching _Misfits_ on Harry's iPad while Liam uses her lap as a pillow when she gets a text from Nick.

_Aimee thinks Tomlinshaw could be the next Stylinson. Come out tonight and give the fangirls more fodder._

Louis snorts quietly to herself. It sounds tempting, but, _We're in Germany._ She types one-handed, the fingers of her other hand tangled up in what's become a nest of Liam's hair.

Nick sends back a string of crying emojis - she's as bad as Harry, honestly - followed immediately by, _When do you get back?_

 _Tonight, late_ Not that late, actually, but she isn't sure that it matters.

_Text me when you get in? Maybe you can come out anyhow?_

Louis doesn't really know what to say, reluctant to make plans with Nick. To avoid giving a real answer, Louis sends off a rocket ship emoji and goes back to working knots into Liam's hair and watching Nathan try to figure out his power.

It's just after midnight when the car drops Louis back at her house. The temperature outside has dropped significantly since she left that morning, so she turns up the heat and goes to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She flicks on the kettle and leans against the counter to wait for it to boil, fiddling with her phone. She taps out a text before she can think better of it - _If I come out and you abandon me again, I'll tweet your phone number_ \- and hits send as the water comes to a boil. Nick's reply comes almost immediately: _yaaaaaayyy!!!!!_ with the name and address of a club.

Nick is waiting just inside the door when Louis arrives at the club, and she greets Louis brightly before pulling her into a hug. She smells faintly of peppermint and the remnants of a spicy perfume, and the fabric of her tee shirt is exceptionally soft under Louis' fingertips.

She's smiling brilliantly when they separate. "I was going to have a drink waiting for you, but I wasn't sure what you'd want," she says, leading Louis to the bar with a hand at the small of her back.

"Surprise me. Anything but gin."

Nick looks at her appraisingly for a moment before ordering two whiskey sours. Louis drinks half of hers in one while Nick watches, amused. "How was Germany then?"

"Fine. Fun," Louis amends, because it's the truth. "You're not here alone are you?"

"No, everyone's dancing."

"Then we should dance," Louis says before downing the last of her drink.

The club is dimly lit and too hot and crowded, like any club, but it's smaller than most, which means fewer people, and if anyone recognizes Louis when Nick leads her out onto the dance floor, they don't care. No one comments or stares, and she doesn't see anyone sneaking photos disguised as selfies. Louis lets go a bit, loses herself in the heavy bass and the way that Nick moves in the space beside her, the buzz of alcohol in her bloodstream buoying her along.

Even though they're with a group of Nick's friends, Louis finds herself dancing almost exclusively Nick, pressed into her space, close enough to rest a hand on her hip and catch the scent of her perfume. Nick's arm slips around Louis' waist, a hand at the small of her back, fingertips slipping beneath the hem of her shirt to rest against her bare skin.

The music changes, something deeper and heavier, and Nick shifts closer, the movement of her hips a bit dirtier than before. She tugs Louis in, prompting her to move in time; it's dirty and sexy and hot. It's so hot, and Louis is sweating, her hair sticking to the back of her neck, the sweat prickling at the small of her back. She pushes up onto her toes, putting her mouth close to Nick's ear.

"I'm going to get another drink."

She turns without waiting for Nick's response, slipping through the crush of bodies to flee the dance floor in favor of the bar. She feels drunk, more drunk than she realized, and she nearly asks the bartender for a glass of water before thinking _fuck it_ and ordering another whiskey sour.

"Make it two."

Louis blinks up at Nick. "You didn't have to stop."

Nick just shrugs, smiling a little, adjusting the drape of her baggy grey t-shirt before leaning against the bar. She accepts her drink from the bartender with a little smile and takes a sip before leaning close to Louis so she can be heard over the music when she says, "I am sorry about the other night. Harry is a terrible distraction, but that's no excuse."

"It's fine. I'll get my retribution later."

Nick bursts out laughing, a deep, throaty sound that makes Louis laugh in spite of herself. "God, you really will, too."

Louis takes a deep drink, nodding seriously. "You can count on it."

Nick squares her shoulders, standing up straight. "In that case, I'll need shots," she declares, gesturing for the bartender again.

*

When PR Jenna tells Louis that being seen with Nick has worked - for the most part, the fans have been convinced that Nick and Louis don't hate each other - and they can stop the stunts, Louis shrugs.

It's a wasted gesture given that Jenna is on the phone and Louis is standing alone in her kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. "Fine," she says aloud when she realizes, ringing off the call shortly thereafter.

She doesn't bother to tell PR Jenna that she considers Nick an actual friend now, that they text frequently and enjoy spending time together.

It's none of PR Jenna's goddamn business.

*

Louis and the girls are busy doing promo for the new album; they spend a week in America and then fly to Australia for another week in Sydney. They're all ridiculously jet-lagged, a feeling that's become all too familiar in the last four years, and 4:30 in the morning finds Louis sprawled across the bed in her hotel room with Niall, flipping channels on the telly every five minutes in an attempt to find something boring enough to lull them to sleep.

Louis makes a face at the obnoxious reporter on the telly and flicks away from the news to settle on something that apparently includes a mass of balloons. "Niall."

"Hmm?" She's lying at the foot of the bed, her head dangling off the end so the ends of her hair brush the carpet, fiddling with her phone.

"If I threw myself a birthday party, would you come?"

Niall pulls herself upright to look at Louis. "What the fuck kind of question is that?" she asks like Louis is being particularly stupid. "Of course I'd come, you cow."

"Oi, don't be a bitch."

"Fuck off and don't ask idiotic questions," Niall shoots back before flopping sideways on the bed and pulling a pillow over her face.

So Louis is throwing herself a birthday party.

*

Louis hasn't had a proper birthday party since she turned thirteen. That party had included a chocolate cake her mum had made from a box mix, bags of crisps and pretzels dumped into big bowls, and most of the girls from her class at school.

Planning her twenty-third birthday, Louis buys a load of alcohol and mixers, orders several dozen fairy cakes from the bakery that did the cake for Lux's last birthday, makes a playlist, and sends a giant group text as an invitation. The helium balloons and banner (reading _Happy Birthday to Me!_ ) are really an afterthought, worked in with the Christmas decorations she already has up.

Niall and Liam come over before Louis has even finished getting ready, and while Liam tries to talk Louis out of wearing worn-in jeans and a jumper to the party (futile), Niall pours them all several rounds of shots so that Louis is quite drunk when her guests start to arrive.

She's well on her way to smashed when Nick arrives wearing a fantastic burgundy dress and carrying a bottle of vodka tied with a sparkling silver ribbon. She finds Louis straight off, coming into the kitchen where Louis has just drunk the entire glass of water Liam pushed into her hand, chased by a shot of peppermint schnapps. Nick leans down to kiss her cheek, saying a quiet, "Happy birthday, pet," and handing her the vodka.

Louis normally tries to be gracious about even the worst gifts (because sometimes it really is the thought that counts), but she thinks Nick is beyond the need for coddling. "Really?" she says. "This is your gift?"

Nick shrugs, a hint of a smile playing at her lips. "You're a millionaire. You can buy yourself whatever you want."

And she's not wrong, but Louis is strangely disappointed. She might not need gifts, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't _like_ them.

"I did make a playlist for you," Nick offers, pulling an iPod from her pocket. "I could put it on your laptop."

Louis gives a careless shrug, mixing herself a drink with vanilla rum and Sprite. "If you like. I should go make sure that Niall isn't hooking up with someone in my bedroom," she says, though she's quite sure that Niall is out back getting high with Zayn and will be going home with Bressie later. "Make yourself a drink. Have fun!"

"Sure," Nick answers as Louis heads for the door. "Happy birthday!"

Louis throws herself into the party, drinking heavily and entertaining her guests, accepting their birthday wishes and ensuring that her house doesn't get too destroyed. And if she doesn't find herself alone in a room with Nick again, well. That's just a happy coincidence.

She wakes too early and too hungover the next morning, tucked under her duvet beside Zayn and Harry. She stays in bed for a long time, her eyes closed against the light seeping in around the edges of the curtains, willing herself to sleep to give her hangover a chance to subside. It lasts for all of ten minutes before she climbing gingerly from the bed, shuffling her feet into a pair of fuzzy green slippers and slowly, slowly tugging a hoodie over her head. It takes an age to get downstairs to the kitchen, but if she moves too quickly she might vomit or her brain might throb so hard that it starts to spill out of her ears or something equally horrible. She flicks on the kettle and retrieves a box of saltines from the cabinet, foregoing the effort that goes into making toast.

The kitchen is a disaster. There are bottles strewn across the bench and plastic cups scattered about and overflowing the bin; all of the counters and the floor seem to be coated in a thin sticky film. Louis considers it all dispassionately, nibbling the corner of a cracker while she waits for the water to boil. She's worry about cleaning up later, when the mere idea of bending over to retrieve something off the floor doesn't make her head pound.

Reaching into the cabinet for a mug, she spots the bottle of vodka that Nick had brought, the silver bow still neatly tied around the neck of it. Louis had successfully avoided Nick for the rest of the night, but in the searing light of the morning after, she's a little ashamed and more than a bit disappointed. The hangover that she's nursing is her own fault, but no matter how much she wants to pretend she's unaffected, it was Nick's presence that drove her to drink so heavily.

Needing to do something to assuage her sudden regret, Louis pulls up the browser on her phone and orders a bottle of very nice champagne to be sent to Nick at the Radio 1 studio for Christmas.

*

_Are you coming out with us tonight?_

 _What are you on about?_ Louis replies to Nick's text. It's dishonest; Harry's already called to beg her to join in on the night out that she and Nick have planned with a load of their friends. Louis' torn. She's due for a good night out and has been going a bit stir crazy since she got back to London, but it's probably not a good idea to be around Nick in such close proximity to alcohol again after the last time.

_Don't even try, I know Harry's invited you_

_Fine_

Fine. It will be fine. She can go out with her friends and have fun without losing control of herself, she's been doing it for years. Besides, Nick is just a friend, a friend of a friend, really, and Louis hardly needs to be drunk to spend time with her.

"You're not wearing that," Harry says when she arrives to pick Louis up for the night.

She looks down at her jeans and vintage tee shirt. "I have a blazer." Harry _tsks_. "What's wrong with it?"

"This is a proper night out, Lou." She shrugs out of her coat to show the sequined skirt and filmy top she's wearing. "You've got to dress up a bit."

"Haz, I don't--"

"Come on," Harry says, already heading up the stairs. "Let's go find something in your closet."

Louis vetoes a purple lace minidress, leather leggings, and anything with sequins before finally agreeing to a flippy little skirt and a gray tee shirt so tissue-thin that the red lace bra she's wearing underneath peeks through. Harry puts her foot down when Louis tries to put on flats, insisting on a pair of thigh-high black leather boots.

"Are you satisfied now?" Louis asks, doing up the zipper at the inside of her thigh.

"Everyone who sees you will be satisfied," Harry answers, eying Louis' thighs lasciviously. "Those boots are ridiculously hot."

"They're just boots," Louis grumbles, but when she stands in front of the mirror, she can see what Harry means. The strip of skin between the hem of her skirt and the tops of the boots is appealing.

And when they arrive at the club, it's more than a bit gratifying the way that Nick's eyes linger over that skin for a long moment before she meets Louis' eyes and smiles. "You're looking fit, Lou."

"Thanks." Nick's looking quite fit herself in skintight black trousers and boots and a drapey top, but Louis doesn't allow herself to dwell. "Good holidays?"

"Yeah, good. Thanks for the bubbly."

Louis gives a little shrug. "It's my favorite, and I thought you might like it."

"I'll let you know."

"You haven't drunk it yet?"

"Nah." Nick smiles. "Saving it for a special occasion, aren't I?"

Louis raises an eyebrow, but is saved from answering when Gillian and Daisy pull Nick out to the dance floor.

However determined Louis is not to have another morning like the one after her birthday party, she's hardly going to spend a night out sober when she doesn't have to. She can have a few drinks without being hungover the next morning. It's the third vodka soda that has her more than a bit tipsy when Harry drags her out onto the dance floor, into the hot crush of bodies moving with music, the bass thumping heavily enough to feel through the floor. She's not quite steady on her feet as she dances, leaning on Harry, relying her on to keep upright.

Louis loses herself in it, the heat and the bass and the mindless motion of her body. The lights are low on the dance floor, dim enough that she isn't worried about being recognized or bothered. It's a freedom that she gets rarely enough that she has to take advantage, and when Harry leans down to ask if Louis wants to come with her to the bar for another drink, Louis waves a dismissive hand.

She starts when she feels hands on her hips, head snapping around quickly, the _fuck off_ right there on the tip of her tongue. It dies when she sees that it's only Nick, grinning and tugging Louis back into the frame of her body so they're moving together

Nick isn't an exceptional dancer, but she does have rhythm, so Louis tucks herself close and moves with her. It feels familiar, even though they've only done this once before, and Louis goes with it. She moves closer to Nick when she puts her hands on Louis' hips, turning to drape one arm around Nick's waist, their legs slotted together so that their hips are close enough to brush when they move just right.

Nick smells amazing, spicy and vaguely floral, whiskey on her breath and the faintest scent of sweat. Louis moves even closer, tipping her head back to look up at Nick when her hands flex on Louis' hips. This close, she can see that Nick's lips are pink and shiny, her eyes glittering even in the dimness of the club as she meets Louis' gaze. Louis brings one arm up to drape over Nick's shoulder, pressing up onto her toes just a bit, and oh fuck.

She steps away from Nick abruptly, fleeing the dance floor as quickly as she can manage to squeeze past the other people, making a beeline for the loos, stumbling just a bit on her heels. There are a few girls standing in front of the mirror, chatting and laughing, but none of them pay Louis any mind when she strides past and locks herself into the first empty cubicle.

Alone and in the relative quiet of her cubicle, Louis' mind begins to clear, until one thought stands out stark from the rest: Louis wants to kiss Nick.

And fuck, she doesn't just _want_ to kiss Nick, she almost _did_ kiss Nick, right there in the middle of a crowded dance floor, and she's been drinking but she isn't drunk, and--

Louis presses a hand to her mouth to muffle her sob. She made a decision, dammit, a conscious decision not to be this, not now and maybe not ever, and certainly not with Nick fucking Grimshaw. Nick, who's never been anything but nice to Louis', even when she didn't deserve it, who has been a great friend to Harry from day one and has therefore earned Louis' almost implicit trust. Who agreed to take part in a string of publicity stunts that were far more for Louis' benefit than her own and did whatever she was asked without even a hint of complaint. Who somehow knows Louis well enough to make a birthday playlist that she listened to on repeat the whole time she was back home for the holidays.

 _Fuck._

Louis hangs her head, pressing her fingers to her lips. Nick couldn't just be some hot girl that she wants to fuck. Of course it couldn't be that easy. Hiding in a bathroom cubicle, Louis can admit to herself that she's attracted to Nick. She just...can't.

She could leave. She could say she's poorly and call the car service to take her home. She could text Harry from here and not even have to see Nick again. Or she could go straight to the bar and get blazingly pissed and blame her actions on the liquor. Or she could go back and hang out and pretend that nothing has changed, that she hasn't just realized that she has a massive crush on the woman half the world has believed she's been feuding with for the last three years.

She takes a deep breath, pulls her spine up straight and tall, and takes a moment read a bit of graffiti scrawled on the stall door. _why not?_ it reads, mocking her. She rolls her eyes and unlatches the door, smoothing her hands over her hair as she steps out. 

Nick is standing there just outside the stall, looking at herself in the mirror as she twists locks of her hair around her fingers, redefining her messy curls. Louis freezes for a beat, then goes to stand at the basin beside Nick's, turning on the water and sticking her hands underneath. The water is cold, so cold it begins to ache, but still Louis leaves her hands beneath the stream.

"Why did you run away?" Nick finally asks.

"I didn't run," Louis snaps, defensive.

"All right," Nick replies. She waits patiently, using the crook of one finger to sweep away a wayward smudge of eyeliner, and when Louis finally pulls her hands from beneath the stinging cold water, Nick hands her a paper towel.

"Louis--"

"Shut up," she snaps. She drops the wet towel onto the counter next to the basin and pushes up onto her toes to kiss Nick, clutching at her hip to keep her balance. 

Nick's mouth is warm and soft, and Louis has kissed girls before but it's been so, so long, she'd forgotten....

And a kiss is a kiss, not all girls kiss differently than all boys, that's a load of rubbish, but it's still _different_ , and -

Louis pulls away with a gasp when a pair of laughing girls comes through the door. She blinks owlishly up at Nick, who just stares back at Louis for a breathless moment before grabbing her hand and pulling her back into the cubicle that she just emerged from, the door banging shut as Nick pushes her back against it.

Nick tastes of whiskey when she licks into Louis mouth, her fingers digging into Louis' waist as she pins her back to the door. Louis chokes back a whimper, her hand going up to tangle in Nick's hair, angling her head to take the kiss deeper. She's vaguely aware of how much closer Nick's face is to hers than usual thanks to the ridiculously high heels on her boots, a thought that evaporates when Nick palms her thigh, long fingers wrapping around the back and tugging her fractionally closer. For all that Nick looks narrow, she's bigger than Louis, her body covering Louis' almost completely.

Nick slides her hand higher up Louis' thigh, nipping at her bottom lip at the same moment that her index finger brushes against the edge of the lace of her panties. Louis whines high in her throat, tilting her head back until it thunks against the door at her back. "Nick."

"Come home with me," Nick breathes, nosing along Louis' jaw.

"Fuck." Louis dips her head to catch Nick's mouth again, pressing her hips forward when Nick's hand slides back down her thigh, hitching her leg up just the tiniest bit. "Yeah. Fuck, yes. Okay."

Nick moans, a tiny, quiet sound at odds with the fierce way she's kissing Louis. When she finally pulls back, it's with a muttered curse. Her lips are kissed pink, her eyes dark as she looks down at Louis. "Fuck," she says again, leaning in to press her lips to Louis' again, one quick, rough kiss. "I'll get a cab and meet you out front?"

Louis nods, breathless, shifting so that Nick can unlatch the door. She pauses, her hand on the latch. "You're not going to leave me hanging, are you?"

Louis licks her lips. "No. I promise."

She stares at the inside of the door once Nick has gone. _why not?_ it says, still, and it doesn't seem like a taunt any more, but a sort of tacit permission. After all, why not go home with Nick?

Louis lets herself out of the cubicle before her rational mind can begin offering reasons why she shouldn't, actually. She washes her hands again, this time with hot water, lest the bathroom attendant think that Louis Tomlinson can't manage basic hygiene. Stopping at the attendant's station, she accepts a peppermint and slips a twenty pound note into her tip jar, hoping that it's enough to ensure her discretion if she saw a bit more than she should have.

She's still shrugging into her coat when she steps out onto the sidewalk, looking around for Nick. "Lou!" There's a cab idling at the curb; the back door pops open when she steps close.

"Those boots are hot as fuck," Nick says when Louis slides in beside her, prompting a snorting laugh. "I'm serious. Look at you."

"Harry made me wear them. I wanted to wear flats."

Nick sets her hand on Louis' thigh, just above the top of her boot. "Is it wrong if I'm glad you didn't?"

Louis peers up at her from beneath her lashes. "I suppose not." She sways back when Nick tries to lean in for a kiss. "How long to your place?"

"Ten minutes?" Nick guesses. "Fifteen?"

Louis huffs out an impatient breath. "We can wait, yeah?"

Nick's little finger tucks its way under the edge of the boot, her fingers fanning out so that her thumb is tucked well up beneath the hem of Louis' skirt. "S'pose." She takes her hand off Louis' thigh.

"So," Louis says after a long moment of odd silence. "How were your holidays?"

Nick gives her a disbelieving look and laughs, breathless. "My holidays. Good, yeah. Went home, saw my parents, ate too much pudding. You?"

"Same." Louis doesn't mention how weird it feels to be home now that her mum and Dan are married and living in a new house where Louis has never had a room. "Spent time with the new babies. Snuck my sister a bottle of wine when she went out with her friends for new year's."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen."

"You're a terrible influence."

"You're hardly the first person to tell me that, Grimshaw."

Nick smirks. "I bet not."

Louis hardly knows what they're talking about for the rest of the ride. She's got her hands folded tight in her lap to make sure that they don't wander, and she knows that she's talking, but it's all out of her arse. Her mind is running a constant loop of, _you're going home with a girl you're going home with a girl you're going home with Nick_ , and that's about as much as she can handle at the moment.

They're greeted by the staccato click of the dog's toenails on the hardwood as soon as Nick opens the door. "Hello, Pig dog!" Nick exclaims, shrugging out of her coat and flicking on a light, leaning down to scritch under the dog's chin. "Pig, this is Louis. You've seen her on the telly, of course."

Louis directs an eyeroll at Nick, then bends down to scratch between the dog's ears. "You're a love, aren't you," she coos as Pig wriggles.

"She's spoiled," Nick says, but she's smiling fondly. She straightens a bit, snapping her fingers, and Pig turns to her immediately. "I'll just put her in the kitchen," she says, walking through a doorway.

"You don't have to do that," Louis says, hanging her coat on the rack with Nick's and following her through the living room.

"I do, or she'll try to jump in bed with us."

Bed. God, Louis is going to bed with Nick.

Pig gives a single indignant bark when Nick closes the kitchen door, then all that's left is the faint sound of her toenails on the tile floor.

It's dark in the living room, the only light coming from the front hallway and the tiny sliver beneath the kitchen door. Nick's face is shadowed as she walks back to Louis. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Sexiled someone's dog? No."

She can hear Nick's smile when she says, "Not what I meant, love." She sets her hands on Louis' shoulders and smooths them down her arms, weaving their fingers together when she gets to her hands. "Have you been with a woman?"

Louis swallows hard, suddenly feeling woefully out of her depth. "Not since I was seventeen," she answers honestly. A few kisses from Harry hardly count.

Nick hums, so quietly that Louis barely hears it, reaching up to trace the tips of her fingers over Louis' cheek. She leans in slowly, just brushing her lips against Louis' for a moment, and it's so sweet and gentle and _different_ from the kiss in the bathroom that it makes her head spin.

Nick carries on like that, little nips and brushes of her lips against Louis', retreating whenever Louis tries to deepen the kiss, until Louis tangles a hand in the back of her hair and holds her where she wants her, curling her tongue around Nick's. Their breasts brush together whenever they inhale, a teasing pressure that has Louis arching her back for more, her hand dipping down to press between Nick's shoulder blades, keeping her close.

"Lou," Nick mumbles into her mouth. "Louis." She pulls back and waits until Louis looks at her, eyes glittering dark. "What do you want?"

Louis takes a breath. "Take me to bed."

Nick leans in to kiss her again, deep and slow. "Okay."

She pushes Louis to sit on the edge of the bed when they get to her room, kneeling in front of her and sliding a hand up the inside of her boot, tracing the zipper. "Really great boots," she says, leaning down to press her lips to the bare skin just above them before tugging the zip down slowly.

"I'll buy you a pair," Louis manages, watching open-mouthed while Nick smooths her hands down the skin she's revealed.

She drops the first boot to the floor and moves to the other, kissing even more thoroughly over this thigh before undoing the zip and pulling it off. She rises up to her knees and sets her hands on the bed on either side of Louis' hips, pinning her with her gaze. "I like them on you."

Louis catches Nick under her arms and tugs. "Fuck, get up here."

"Wait," Nick laughs, fumbling to her feet and reaching down to remove her own boots unceremoniously. She watches as Louis pushes herself back up the bed, her skirt rucked up high around her thighs, head on the pillows. "You're so fucking pretty," she says, climbing up onto the bed and straddling Louis' hips.

Louis' thanks is lost in Nick's mouth when she leans down to kiss her again, slow, drugging kisses that she seems more than content to carry on with all night. She moves back whenever Louis arches her back or rolls her hips up for more contact, smiling against Louis' lips when she whines, frustrated.

"Tease," Louis spits.

Nick smiles, sitting up straight and skimming her hands up Louis' sides, taking her shirt with them. She drops it to the floor, leaning down again to kiss along the edge of Louis' red lace bra. "Just taking my time, pet."

This time when Louis arches her back, Nick slips her hand around, urging her up higher and unhooking her bra with ease, tossing it away. She straightens to pull off her own top unceremoniously, giving Louis a momentary view of her slender torso all long and gorgeous in black satin before she tosses that away too, shifts to the side, and bends to attach her mouth to the curve of Louis' breast.

Louis gasps at the first touch of Nick's tongue to her nipple, her hand coming up to the back of Nick's head, silently urging her to carry on. Nick's skin is soft under her fingertips as she walks them up the ladder of her ribs, tracing a line just beneath her breasts. The sound she makes when Louis finally touches her breasts properly is brilliant, low and throaty, rumbling against Louis' lips.

Louis gets lost in it, the sensation of Nick's mouth on her breasts and the heady satisfaction of her response to Louis' hands, so it catches her off guard when Nick's hand slips beneath her skirt, the knuckle of one finger skimming over the front of her panties teasingly. "God," she bites out. "Nick, fuck."

Nick repeats the motion, grinning wolfishly down at Louis. "Yeah?"

"Yes, fuck." Their slow, easy pace is lost when Louis begins scrabbling at the waistband of her skirt, pushing it down off her hips along with her panties, kicking them both off the bed. She surges up, knocking Nick onto her back and unbuttoning her trousers, peeling them down without fanfare. She pauses for just a moment, admiring how Nick looks spread out on the pale duvet, naked but for her panties, her hair in disarray around her face, her cheeks and chest flushed and lovely. 

"You're just...too much," Louis finishes. Nick's laugh cuts off with a surprised sound when Louis straddles her thigh and ducks her head to suck a little mark over her collarbone, her own little stamp on the appealingly bare skin.

She bracelets Louis' wrists with her fingers, her hold going tighter until Louis looks down at her. "What do you want?" she asks again when Louis meets her eyes.

"I want to come," Louis says, breathless but not hesitant. She does, very much, and then she wants to watch Nick do the same.

Nick bends her knee, pressing her bare thigh up against Louis' cunt. Louis whines at the contact, riding down into it, her eyelashes fluttering at the hungry way Nick stares up at her. "Like this?" she asks, rocking in time with Louis' hips, smooth skin sliding in Louis' wet. "Or do you want me to lick you out?"

Louis' moan is too loud, she knows, but Nick doesn't seem bothered, pushing her onto her back and following her down, smudging kisses down her abdomen and between her hipbones as she shoulders her way between Louis' thighs. "You're sure?" she asks, pressing a chaste kiss to Louis' hipbone.

"Nick, please."

Louis trembles when Nick spreads her open, fisting her hands in the duvet and struggling to keep her hips from grinding up against Nick's face. The first touch of her tongue is a overwhelming sensation of hotwet _good_ , and Louis covers her mouth with her hand in an attempt to muffle the sound she makes, high and mewling.

Nick backs off a bit, taking Louis' hand in hers and pulling it away from her mouth. "Don't," she breathes, lacing her fingers through Louis' and pressing their palms together. "I wanna hear you." She leans in, touching just the tip of her tongue to Louis' clit until she whimpers. "Yeah." She flattens her tongue, increasing the pressure, and Louis moans, her hips twitching up. "That's it, sweetheart."

And it's...it's so _much_ , and it feels so _good_. Louis immediately feels out of control, too close to the edge as Nick licks her out. She can't keep track of the sensations, the different things that Nick is doing with her tongue, her lips, her fingers. She clings to Nick's hand, hips riding up into the pressure of her mouth, overwhelmed by the sensation of her impending orgasm. Nick wraps her lips around Louis' clit and sucks, and the tension snaps. Her back arches as the orgasm burns through her, her hips rolling to chase the heat of Nick's mouth, sob-like noises punched from somewhere deep in her chest.

"Jesus wept," Nick mumbles, swiping the back of her hand over her wet mouth moving up Louis' body to press their lips together. "Fuck, you look good like this."

Louis leans up to kiss her again, messy and uncoordinated, the taste of herself on Nick's tongue sending a shuddering jolt of arousal through her. "Nick. Nick, Nick. Wanna see you come."

" _Yes,_ " she hisses, letting Louis push her onto her back.

Louis hesitates, looking down at Nick splayed beneath her. "I-- What do you--"

"Just touch me," Nick begs, catching Louis' hand in hers and guiding it to her cunt. "Lou, please."

Louis' eyes widen at how wet she is. "Fuck, _Nick_."

She moans, canting her hips up when Louis slides two fingers on either side of her clit, just lightly at first and increasing the pressure when Nick bucks into it, grabbing Louis' wrist in a vice grip that she takes to mean she should carry on with what she's doing. Nick's chest is heaving, every exhalation coming with a whine, her eyelashes fluttering, her mouth pink and still wet. Louis ducks her head to press her mouth to Nick's collarbone, sucking to darken the mark she made earlier, and that's enough to push her over the edge.

Nick goes quiet when she comes, her body drawn taut as a bowstring for a quavering moment before she releases a great heaving breath and goes boneless, sinking down into the mattress and blinking slowly up at Louis. "Yeah?"

Louis breathes out a laugh. "Yeah." She lays back against the pillows beside Nick, wrapping her arms around her own waist, a bit shy.

Nick turns onto her side to face Louis, pushing her hair over one shoulder. "All right?" Louis hums, closing her eyes so she doesn't have to see the way that Nick is looking at her. She starts a bit when Nick's fingers brush over the skin just beneath Louis' right collarbone, just over the _it is what it is_ she has inked there. "You're sure?"

Louis turns her head to look at Nick, who's looking at her closely through the dark. "If I'd known getting you off would shut you up, I might've tried that a while ago," she quips, leaning forward to catch Nick's snort of laughter against her lips.

"Uncalled for," Nick manages, but she's grinning into Louis' mouth, pushing her fringe out of her eyes with gentle fingers.

"True." 

Nick pulls back to give Louis an unimpressed look, then shrugs one bony shoulder. Louis expects another snarky comeback, but instead she gets a kiss, a slow, warm press of Nick's lips. "Stay the night."

Louis nods, the energy twitching at her fingertips settling when she presses in for another kiss.

*

She wakes alone in Nick's bed the next morning, snug and warm under the plush duvet, her face pressed into a pillow that smells faintly of lavender. It's too bright, the filmy curtains Nick has on her window inferior to the blackout curtains Louis has at home, and she's tempted to burrow down beneath the duvet and go back to sleep until she hears Nick laugh somewhere in the flat, talking quietly enough that Louis can't make out the words.

She climbs out of bed, slips into her panties, and opens dresser drawers until she finds Nick's t-shirts, taking a plain grey v-neck. In the bathroom, Louis scowls at her reflection; she slept in her makeup, so her skin looks dull and her mascara has started flaking. She opens Nick's medicine chest to find cleanser and moisturizer and a toothbrush still in its package, and in ten minutes she looks more or less human again. 

Nick's voice gets easier to make out when Louis starts up the hallway. She's talking to Pig, promising an afternoon walk to the dog park, "And I'll even throw that filthy disgusting tennis ball for you," she's saying when Louis steps into the kitchen. She's standing at the sink in a vest and a tiny pair of cotton shorts, rinsing a few dishes under the tap. The aroma of brewed coffee lingers in the air, and Pig is lying on a bed in the corner, methodically pulling the stuffing from a soft toy.

"Sounds like just the way to a lady's heart," Louis teases, smiling helplessly when Nick grins over her shoulder, setting a mug on the drain board. Something twists deep in her stomach.

"I didn't wake you, did I? My body's forgotten how to have a lie in, but you didn't have to get up."

"It's fine. It was the sun, not you."

"Coffee or tea?" Nick asks, still smiling, pulling a mug from the cupboard.

Louis wrinkles her nose, coming to stand beside her. "Tea. You savage."

"We can't all be perfect, Lou."

"I suppose not." Nick rolls her eyes, but leans down to press a quick kiss to the corner of Louis' mouth when she tips her head back. Louis makes a noise of protest when she moves away. "Don't half-arse it, Nick."

Nick quirks an eyebrow, but she puts down the box of tea in her hand and turns to face Louis straight on, curving a hand around Louis' cheek and leaning down to kiss her slow and gentle. Louis makes an impatient noise and presses up onto her toes, catching the ends of Nick's hair in her fingers and tugging lightly, sucking at her bottom lip until she gasps, pressing her tongue into Nick's mouth.

It feels good, great even, but after a moment she pulls away with a quiet noise of displeasure. "Coffee," she explains when Nick furrows her brow.

Nick bursts out laughing. "You're ridiculous." Louis shrugs, pouring boiling water over her teabag pointedly. "Ridiculous," Nick repeats, though she's still smiling. She takes an equally pointed sip of her coffee before setting the mug back on the counter and opening the fridge. "How do you take your eggs?"

"However. Are you making me breakfast?"

"Looks like."

Louis hops up onto the counter, tugging her shirt - Nick's shirt - down over her bare thighs and poking at her teabag, scalding the tip of her little finger. "Know how to treat a girl right, don't you, Grimshaw?"

"Proved that already last night, innit?"

"Fair point."

It's only ten minutes until they sit down to a breakfast of eggs on toast, Louis already drinking her second cup of tea. Nick hooks her foot around Louis' ankle under the table before either of them have taken even one bite.

"When do you leave on tour again?"

"February. Australia first, then Asia."

"And what are you going to do until then?"

Louis shrugs. "As little as I can get away with, if I'm honest. Might go to Doncaster, spend some time with my family while I can."

"You really miss them, don't you?"

"Yeah." If it hadn't been for X Factor and the band, she might never have been able to bring herself to leave Doncaster, to leave her family, even if she had managed to get through school. In her weaker moments, she considers what it would be like to leave it all and go home, to be there to watch the girls and Ernie grow up, to be able to help her mother when she needs it. "I already promised Lottie that she could come out again for a couple of weeks this summer," she tells Nick. "Maybe Fizzy too, if I can convince Mum."

"Are you going to stick around for a few days?"

Nick doesn't meet her eyes for a long moment, all of her attention seemingly necessary to fork up a bite. "Might do," Louis says when she finally looks up.

"We could have lunch on Monday. There's a sandwich place near the station--"

"The one that does those panini?" Nick nods. "I know the place. Sounds good." She takes the last bite of her breakfast. "So was that," she adds with a wink, sitting back in her chair and sipping the last of her tea.

Nick pushes her own plate away with a grin. "Let's go then, find you something to wear so you don't get papped doing a walk of shame," she says.

The blogs still make note any time Harry is photographed wearing the same clothes she was seen in the night before, but the papers have given up, it's such a regular occurrence (and because Harry is so utterly unaffected by all of it). Louis, however, likely isn't so lucky, and hates the idea of her sisters seeing her talked about like that, so she takes Nick up on her offer, accepting a jersey skirt, a pair of over-sized sunglasses, and a pair of salt-stained Tom's of unknown origin that are only a half-size too big for Louis, unlike all of Nick's two-sizes-too-big shoes.

Nick walks her to the door when the car service calls, leaning against the wall and watching while Louis does up her coat. "See you later?"

"Yeah."

Louis lingers for just a moment, just long enough for Nick to push off of the wall, leaning down to press a slow, easy kiss to Louis' mouth. "See you later."

*

The panic doesn't set in until late that afternoon, after Louis has slept for another few hours and wakes in her own bed. She's sweating and her heart is beating too fast, the sheets tangled around her legs. She scrabbles for her phone, tapping through Twitter to see her mentions. She knows, rationally, that if some sort of scandal had broken since this morning, her phone would have rung already, but it isn't until she sees with her own eyes.

Because last night...it was lovely, she can admit, but she can't. She can't do that, can't be that.

Swallowing back the hysteria rising in her throat, Louis calls her mum.

"Hi, love!"

Hey, Mum." Louis swallows hard. "Do you think it would be all right if I came up for a visit?"

*

_We're still on for lunch, yeah? I'll meet you at the restaurant at 1:30?_

_Louis? Lunch?_

_You aren't ignoring me, are you? I'd rather you just say if you don't want to go._

_Okay then._

*

She's taking turns swooping Ernie and Doris around the playroom when her phone buzzes on the window ledge with a text message. It's another hour of reading books and having quiet time before they're down for their nap and she can check it.

 _Did you really stand Nick up for lunch today?_ from Harry is followed immediately by, _Why didn't you tell me about Friday night?_

Louis thinks about her answer for a long time, leaving her phone on the table while she waits for the kettle to boil for tea, taking a homemade flapjack from the tin on the counter and putting it on a plate, watching the cup as the tea steeps. She plucks the teabag out with her fingernails - painted martian green, messily, by Daisy - and tosses it in the bin, and finally picks up the phone, more so she doesn't burn her tongue on the first too-hot sip of tea than because she wants to reply to Harry.

_Sorry haz_

She turns off her phone and leaves it on the kitchen table, carrying her mug and plate to the living room, picking up the telly remote and flipping aimlessly through the channels.

*

Her mum finds her sitting at the kitchen table at half-two in the morning with a cup of tea and a battered notebook, scratching out lines that might be lyrics or poetry or stream-of-conscious nonsense with a green colored pencil she fished out of Phoebe's school bag. It's probably a load of shit, but maybe she and Liam will be able to pick something useful out of it later.

"Are you ready to tell me why you're here?" her mum asks asks, pouring herself a glass of water and coming to sit at the table.

Louis makes a face and starts doodling a trailing vine along the edge of her paper. "I can't just come for a visit?"

"Of course you can, love. But you've not spent this much time here in five years, and at Christmas you told me that you were going to spend the break in London."

"Plans change," she says with a careless shrug.

"Louis. You're moping."

She scowls. "Why can't you leave well enough alone?" she asks nastily.

"Because I'm your mother, and even if you are twenty-three, it's my job to make sure you're all right." That she doesn't snap back is a sign of how miserable Louis must seem; she learned to give as good as she got from her mum, after all.

"I did something I shouldn't have done," she says.

"Is it something you can fix?"

"I can't take it back."

"That isn't what I said, is it?"

Louis sighs. "I slept with someone. It was a bad idea, and I don't really know how to deal with it."

Her mum doesn't even blink. "And you came here to get away from them?" She nods. "Oh, Lou. Do you think you should talk to him?"

She concentrates very seriously on getting the shape of a leaf on her doodled vine just right, shading it neatly. "It was a girl."

"Do you think you should talk to her then?" She says it like it doesn't make a difference, like it's all the same thing, but it _isn't_.

Louis drops the pencil on the table and slumps forward. "I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to do that," she says. "And after everything with Alexander, it's too much. It's too hard. I can't--"

"Lou," she interrupts gently. "It's all right. It's all right to like who you like."

"I know that," Louis says, because she does, but, "The band though, I can't. It's too much, and I don't--"

"All right," she interrupts again, cutting Louis off before her voice can get too loud. "I know that you made a decision back at the beginning, and I understand why. And I know that you had a rough go of it last year. But sometimes we reevaluate our decisions and make new ones. Maybe what was a good idea five years ago doesn't work for you any more."

"Mum," Louis says, a bit desperately. "I don't think I _can_." Even as she says it, she's not entirely sure what she's talking about.

Her mum smiles gently. "You know that I believe you can do anything, especially if it's something that's important to you. But it's okay if you don't want to." She stands, leaning down to press a kiss to Louis' forehead. "Don't stay up too late, love."

She finishes her tea slowly, filling the blank space on the page in her notebook with more green vines, curling around each other and crowding into the words she's written. By the time her cup is empty, the page is full, and Louis is still miserable.

*

Louis is nervous walking into their first rehearsal for the new tour. She avoided talking to Harry the whole time she was in Doncaster, responding to texts hours after she'd received them most of the time, claiming that she was busy with the girls or the babies or her mum, and never answering any of her questions about what happened with Nick. But Louis knows she's out of time. Harry is probably the best friend that Louis has ever had, not the least because Harry has never let her get away with things. Sooner or later, she's going to make Louis explain herself, and for all that she's understanding and willing to forgive, she'll be the first to call Louis on her bullshit.

Harry doesn't say anything when Louis arrives, ten minutes late but still ahead of Zayn, just gives her a lingering look of disappointment before offering to make her a cup of tea. Hoping to delay the inevitable conversation as long as possible, Louis attaches herself to Liam for the duration of their rehearsal.

Harry, unsurprisingly, corners her in the bathroom after lunch.

"I get it," she says, leaning against the vanity while Louis washes her hands. "You don't want to talk about it."

"I don't."

She nods, watching her hands while she twists one of her rings around her fingers. "I just--" She cuts herself off with a frustrated noise. "Why Nick?"

Louis closes her eyes, her hands still under the running water. "Fuck, Harry, I'm sorry. I --" When she opens her eyes, Harry is watching her with soft, concerned eyes, and Louis' tenuous hold on her self-control slips. " _I can't_ ," she says, horrified that there are tears welling in her eyes.

Harry wraps her arms around Louis immediately, heedless of the way Louis' hands soak her shirt. "Okay," she whispers, hugging Louis close. "Okay."

*

When Harry tells her that she's throwing a party to celebrate both her birthday and the beginning of their tour, Louis' first instinct is to tell her that she can't come because she knows without having to ask that Nick will be there. Of course Nick will be there. She's one of Harry's best friends, and for all that Louis was sure that she was just an attention whore hoping to add Harry to her collection of famous friends, Nick has proven herself a true friend to Harry, always there when she's needed.

And really, that's what decides it for Louis. She can't let Nick be a better friend than she is.

She chooses a cute dress and enlists Eleanor to be her date, inviting her over to get dressed and have a few drinks before they go. She met Eleanor at some party more than three years ago when she was hideously bored but trying not to get drunk because there were management-type people around. Eleanor was funny and beautiful and introduced herself by bringing Louis a shot of birthday cake-flavored vodka and saying, "You look like you could stand to get a bit pissed." Love at first sight, really.

Eleanor is also the only girl that Louis has kissed other than Harry since X Factor. She'd chalked it up to being drunk and handsy and Eleanor had accepted the explanation, joking about it later.

"I saw you with Nick Grimshaw in the papers," Eleanor says. She's sitting cross-legged on the closed lid of the toilet while Louis finishes her makeup, still wearing the leggings and hoodie she arrived in, her hair and makeup finished ages ago. She's drinking vodka and pink lemonade out of one of the cheap plastic cups Louis bought for when the girls visit; Elsa from _Frozen_ is on the side. "Does that mean you don't hate her any more?"

"She's not terrible." She tilts her head at her reflection, considering for a moment before deciding that it is indeed a night for heavy eyeliner and leaning in again.

"A ringing endorsement."

Louis would roll her eyes, but she's just tipsy enough that she might blind herself with an eyeliner pencil if she tried.

"Did Harry put you up to it?"

"PR, actually," Louis says. "Being seen together to make us both look better and all that, but she's really not awful. She's actually quite lovely."

"Not terrible, not awful, quite lovely." Eleanor gives her a pointed look. "Quite a progression."

Louis shrugs, picking up an eyelash curler.

"Does that mean she's going to be your new gal pal? Is this our last hurrah, Louis?"

"What are you on about?"

"It's not like I do anything for your image like Nick apparently does. When we get papped together I'm, 'a friend,'" she says, making air quotes, "but the magazines know who Nick is. What use have you got for me if you've got a Nick Grimshaw?"

"Don't be stupid," Louis dismisses, swiping on a second coat of mascara. "She's hardly a replacement for you, and besides, we're done hanging out."

"I thought she was lovely."

Louis takes a long drink from her own cup. This one has Black Widow on the side. "That doesn't mean that we're friends." She can hear how stilted and weird it comes out, and she takes another drink to hide it. "Come on, you slob. Let's get dressed. If we get there early enough, Haz might not be completely smashed."

It's another forty minutes before they get out of the house, and half an hour in the car to the club, and by the time they arrive, it doesn't matter how smashed Harry is because Louis and Eleanor are thoroughly drunk. They've not even gotten their first drink before Niall accosts them at the bar, a whirl of fluffy blonde curls and a bubblegum pink dress, smelling faintly of whiskey when she leans in to kiss Louis' cheek.

"Robert's here tonight," she tells Louis. "I really think you'd like him if you just met him."

"Niall," Louis all but whines. She's been trying to fix Louis up with her friend Robert since she met him, insisting that he's perfect for her. "It's a party." She looks impatiently behind the bar; where the hell is her drink?

"All the more reason to meet him tonight," Niall says. "If you hate him - which you won't - there are a million other people here to hang out with."

She looks at Eleanor, who gives her a sympathetic look but offers no other help. "Maybe later," she concedes. Niall claps her hands excitedly. "Maybe," she emphasizes again. "I haven't even seen Harry yet."

"Fine. I have to find Bressie before he finishes my drink," she says, leaving as quickly as she'd appeared.

"Are they a thing now?" Eleanor asks as the bartender finally passes over their lemon drops.

"The same thing they've always been," Louis answers with a shrug. It's not entirely accurate, but close enough. In the last couple of years their relationship has shifted from friendly and protective to friends with benefits, led that way entirely by Niall. She spends more nights with Bressie than she does alone when they're in London, and the rest of the time they both do whatever they want. But it's more than just sex; they text constantly, and the only person Niall calls more often on tour than Bressie is her dad. Louis has bet Zayn that they'll wind up married the first time the band takes a year off from touring.

"C'mon," she says. "Let's find the birthday girl."

They find Harry holding court in a booth near the dance floor, drunk and giggling and surrounded by people. "Lou!" she exclaims when they walk up, practically crawling across the table to press a sloppy kiss to Louis' cheek.

"Happy birthday, Haz," she says, keeping Harry upright and studiously ignoring Nick, who is just to Harry's left with a steadying hand on her hip.

"Sit with us and do a shot," Harry insists, looking up at them beseechingly.

"I'll do a shot, but I can't sit. I promised Niall she could introduce me to someone," she says when Harry pouts, ignoring the sharp look that Eleanor shoots her.

True to her word, Louis takes her shot and gives Harry another kiss, then tracks down Niall and allows her to introduce Robert. He is hot - Niall draws in more attractive people than anyone Louis has ever known, including Harry - with warm-toned skin and close-cropped hair. This party is probably the worst place for Louis to meet him, despite what Niall said. It's loud and crowded and Louis is quite drunk, a combination that makes it almost impossible for them to talk. She's got no idea how old he is or what he does or how he met Niall, but she lets him get her another lemon drop, and when he asks if she'd like to dance, she doesn't hesitate to lead the way to the dance floor.

He's a good dancer, and Louis is having fun, but she already knows that this isn't going to go any further, however perfect Niall thinks he is. Because he's hot and he seems nice enough, but Louis doesn't care. She does't care what he does or where he's from or how Niall convinced him that trying to talk a prickly popstar to go out with him was a good idea. All she's thinking about, dancing with Robert's hands on her hips, is Nick. Wondering whether Nick is still in the club, if she's watching Louis dancing with this man, if she's jealous.

Fuck.

"I'm going to the loo," she tells Robert, not waiting for his response before leaving the dance floor, squeezing past the other dancers, ducking one flailing elbow, so she can get down the hallway that leads to the bathrooms. She's a little unsteady on her heels, but it's fine. It's a party.

There are a few girls standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, sharing lipstick and giggling drunkenly, like in every club bathroom in the history of the world, but it's the one by herself that stops Louis in her tracks.

Nick, with her hair straightened so it falls sleek around her shoulders and a slash of red lipstick on her mouth, meeting Louis' eyes in the mirror. She blinks once, then says, softly, "Hey, Louis."

She's drunk, but she's not quite drunk enough for this, Louis thinks as her mouth opens and closes around a soundless word - hey or fuck or what, she's not sure. She presses her lips together briefly, swallows hard, and and plasters on a smile. "Hi, Nick."

It's a relief to be able to step into a cubicle and lock the door. She was prepared to see Nick here tonight, but she wasn't prepared to talk to her, and not in a bathroom of all places. She needs another drink and a crowded room and an escape route to talk to Nick.

She takes her time, and when she steps out of the cubicle she's relieved to see that Nick has gone.

Robert is waiting near the edge of the dance floor when she comes back. She returns his smile and takes his hand when he offers it, leaning down to ask if she'd like to get another drink.

"I think I've had enough," she tells him apologetically. He shifts to the side just a bit, giving her a clear view of Nick dancing with Harry and Caroline Flack. Louis meets her eyes for just a second, but she looks back to Robert immediately, stepping close and pressing a hand to his chest. "Do you think you could help me get a cab?"

She knows that Nick must see her leaving with Robert. What Nick doesn't see is that he puts her in a cab by herself, waving as it pulls away from the curb. What she doesn't know is that Louis never even gives her number to him.

What she doesn't see is Louis crawling into bed alone, wishing that she could stop thinking about Nick fucking Grimshaw.

At some point, she'll have to figure out how to be around Nick again. She's still Harry's friend, and if they're never seen hanging out together again, the fans are going to pick out their earlier publicity stunt as exactly that. But they're leaving on tour in just days, two months on the other side of the world, where she won't have to think about Nick.

She'll worry about it later, she tells herself as she's falling asleep.

*

Of course, thinking about it later is easier said than done.

The first leg of the tour is in Australia, one of Louis' favorite places in the world. It's a lovely place, and the fans here have always been incredible to One Direction. And she loves touring with the girls; they've spent more time on the road in the last three years than they have in any one place, and there are things about touring that feel more normal than being at home does. It's easy to get back into the rhythm of sleeping on the bus or in hotels, of dressing out of a suitcase and being in each other's pockets. It's all comfortingly familiar: the sight of Harry ducked over her phone and Zayn dozing in the corner of a dressing room, Liam wearing her headphones and stretching in an abandoned stadium corridor and Niall eating a different snack every couple of hours.

Louis' not sure what tick of hers the girls notice, but if the way they're hovering around her is any indication, she's not doing it normally.

There's a lot of hurry up and wait on tour, and a lot of downtime and travel, and Louis' brain is kind of a bitch. It doesn't matter how much she tries to distract herself - scratching out potential song lyrics or playing games on her phone or reading this book or that one that Zayn recommended - she keeps coming back to Nick. Louis checks Nick's Twitter and Instagram, and in particular moments of weakness, rereads some of her old texts.

It's pathetic, really, and she can tell that the girls are handling her, the four of them rarely allowing her to be alone. Liam drags her along when she goes shopping in Sydney, and Zayn insists that she needs Louis' opinion when she goes to the tattoo shop, even though she's just getting more work on her mandala. Harry takes to cuddling her whenever the urge strikes - which happens to coincide with Louis' urges to check Twitter for the third time in an hour with alarming frequency - the two of them close together and in each other's space like they haven't been since back during the first tour and the height of the rumors about them. There's always someone beside her in the lounge on the bus or climbing into her bunk or falling asleep on her bed in a hotel room when they're watching a film.

She really, really loves her girls.

When she finally breaks, it's Niall who gets the whole story.

She comes to Louis' hotel room, pushing a room service cart laden with enough breakfast food for all five of them and a bottle of champagne. "Do you know that we missed Galentine's Day?"

Louis laughs aloud. No one loves Leslie Knope like Niall Horan, but Louis is always willing to play along. "Weren't we on the bus?"

"That is no excuse," Niall insists, pushing the cart up next to the bed. "We'll make up for it now though. I ordered you eggy bread."

"What about the other girls?" she asks, climbing up on the bed.

"Busy," Niall answers distractedly, her attention on the bottle of champagne she's opening. A moment later it opens with the ever-satisfying _pop_. "Mimosa?"

Louis scoffs. "Why bother? Just give me the booze."

"Right you are."

If anyone asks later, she'll blame the champagne, but she's only had half a glass when she looks up from her plate and blurts, "I slept with Nick."

Niall pauses with her waffle-laden fork halfway to her mouth. "Grimshaw?"

"Seriously? Who the fuck else?"

"Well, I don't know, you surprised me!" Niall exclaims, dropping her fork and throwing her hands up. "What happened?"

Louis tells her the whole story from the beginning, no details spared, even the ones that make her look like an asshole. Niall listens attentively, finishing her waffles and bacon and a bowl of berries with whipped cream.

"So you have feelings for Nick," she says simply when Louis has finally finished.

She shakes her head helplessly. "It doesn't matter. I made a decision about who I was going to be when we started all of this."

"That's not what I asked," Niall says evenly.

"Obviously I have feelings," Louis snaps. "I can't stop thinking about her."

Niall nods, taking a slow sip of champagne. It reminds Louis that she has a glass of her own, and she swallows a gulp. "You know that Nick isn't anything like Alexander, right?" Niall says after a moment.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Unaffected by the venom in Louis' voice, Niall asks, "Are you hung up on this because you made a decision that Nick is making you question, or because the last person that you trusted was a massive fucking dickhead who made you afraid to trust anyone else?"

Instead of even trying to answer, Louis drains her glass and reaches for the bottle to fill it again.

"I know that you made a decision, but you're allowed to change your mind," Niall says, soft. "And just because your last relationship ended badly doesn't mean that the next one will. Either way, Nick deserves the benefit of the doubt. Don't punish her and yourself because of that asshole."

"Yeah."

"Besides," she goes on, her voice losing most of its softness, "you could be with Nick without being out or whatever. Unless you're making out in public, people will just assume you're friends." She shrugs lazily. "It's worked for me and Harry."

Louis snorts out a laugh, baffled forever by the sweet, innocent reputation that Niall somehow acquired. It's the whole world practicing a weird form of willful ignorance. "Can we just get drunk?" 

"Fuck yes," Niall says, already stretching across the bed to get to the phone on the bedside table. "Two more bottles, yeah?"

It's a truly terrible idea to get completely smashed on champagne, but, "Definitely."

*

It's another week before Louis gets up the courage to do anything, and even then her attempt is pretty lame.

_Zayn and I are buying Japanese robots. That couldn't possibly be a bad idea, right?_

It takes her thirty minutes to compose the text and another ten to actually push send. Nick doesn't respond to the text, nor does she respond to the photo of the robots that Louis sends later, no matter how many times Louis checks her phone.

But after the first message, it's easy to send more. A photo from the cat cafe in Tokyo that Harry dragged her to, questions about the popularity of Hello Kitty that she knows the won't get an answer to, observations about creepy dads in the audience in Japan versus creepy dads in the audience in Australia, a link to a video of a toddler and a baby goat hopping around together, a selfie she snaps in an amazing Japanese garden that they get to visit. It's all lighthearted, the same sort of stuff that she was sending back when they were hanging out, things that don't carry too much subtext and can't be taken too seriously.

Something about it must be working, because the girls are handling her less than they were in Australia, and the funk that she's been carrying around is a little less insistent every moment of the day.

But that doesn't mean that it's gone, and if she's honest, every message she sends that goes without a response from Nick leaves her more and more dejected about the entire thing. And in a moment of weakness, she sends Nick a message that isn't the best of herself.

_I know you hate when popstars complain, but I miss cereal. And getting to eat it in my own bed._

She tosses her phone to the foot of the bed and flops back into the pillows, which smell disconcertingly of nothing. Their hotel in Singapore is nice, of course, but modern to the point of cold, which isn't helped by the fact that Louis can't find the thermostat. She's pulled on a hoodie - white with cat ears on the hood, stolen from Harry's suitcase back in Japan - in deference, but if she's actually going to sleep in here she's going to have to find more blankets.

It takes her a long moment to realize what's happened when her phone buzzes with an alert. Her heart jumps in her chest, but as she's sitting up to retrieve it, she reminds herself that Nick hasn't responded to any of her texts yet. It's probably Harry or Niall or Liam, who opted to go out to a club after the show instead of coming back to the hotel.

But it is from Nick. _You could at least apologize for standing me up. If you were trying to be my friend again._

"Shit," she breathes into the cold silence of her room.

_I am sorry for that. I freaked out a little._

It's the understatement of the year, but she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to explain it all to Nick.

_Apology accepted. I have to be on the radio now, but I hope you get your cereal soon._

Louis immediately thumbs through to the world clock - she's shit at time zones even when she knows which one she's in - and sees that it's early in London, and Nick definitely just responded to her text during the Breakfast Show. It's a lot.

After she finds extra blankets in the closet, Louis falls asleep easily, curled up small in the middle of the bed, hugging the spare pillow to her chest. When she wakes up in the morning, she finds a text from Nick waiting.

_What's your favorite cereal then?_

*

_Pig woke me to take her out at 6 this morning. It's like she doesn't understand that it's Saturday._

_That bitch._

_You're hilarious._

_Thank you._

*

_Some of our security are in disturbingly good moods this morning considering that we're in Bangkok._

_Are you insinuating something about prostitution?_

_Isn't that a thing? "massages" in Thailand?_

_Ask one of them._

_Paul just attempted to revoke my talking privileges until the concert tonight. As if that would work._

_I guess Paul didn't get that happy ending huh?_

*

_Do you think I'd look good with a streak in my hair?_

_A streak?_

_Blue, maybe?_

_Don't. You're too old._

_Rude._

_Don't ask questions you already know the answer to._

*

_Would you rather have a dragon or a direwolf?_

_Spend less time with Zayn._

_Answer the question Nick._

_What use do I have with a direwolf when I've got Pig?_

_Ugh you're the actual worst._

*

_Red or white?_

_Shh sleeping_

_Isn't it the middle of the afternoon where you are?_

*

_I didn't leave with that guy at Harry's birthday party._

_I know. He came back inside after you'd left._

_Oh._

_Did you want me to think that you left with him?_

_Yes_

_Were you trying to make me jealous?_

_I think I just wanted you to see me with a bloke._

_You think?_

_Are you surprised to find out that I don't always know why I'm doing the things I do? Have you not been paying attention?_

*

_Fiona did a mask on me this afternoon and then had the gall to say it helped with my wrinkles. WHAT WRINKLES?!?!?_

Louis smothers a laugh and taps out a reply, slouching deeper into her seat in the airport lounge, resting her hands on Niall's ankles, crossed in Louis' lap so she can stretch out her knee.

"Louis," Liam whines, kicking out at Louis' foot. "Don't you do anything but look at your phone any more?"

"I am hardly the only person in this band with an attachment to her phone," Louis replies mildly. "I don't see you saying anything to Harry." Who, right now, is typing away on her phone while Zayn naps against her shoulder, almost certainly texting someone.

"Harry's always been like this. It's new for you."

Louis shrugs, though it isn't strictly true. She and Alexander texted a lot right up until the end, but that's been long enough ago that maybe Liam's forgotten. "You're one to talk, Li."

"I'm not that bad," Liam protests, a wounded expression on her face when Niall scoffs loudly without opening her eyes. "I'm not!"

Just then her phone starts buzzing in her lap with a call; she glares down at it while Louis and Niall laugh. "Sure you're not, Li," Louis teases as she rises from her seat to find a quiet corner.

Louis looks down at her phone as another message from Nick comes in, grinning at her indignation over being called old.

Niall moves to sit up properly beside Louis, nudging her in the ribs with a sharp elbow. "You and Nick are finally talking?" she asks, voice soft. Louis nods. "And it's good?"

"It's better," she answers honestly, smiling a little, and it's something of an understatement. It's absolutely better than the nothing she had before.

"Good," Niall says, slouching down so she can lean her head against Louis' shoulder. "That's really good, Lou."

*

Louis' stomach flutters when the Skype call chimes; she swipes a knuckle under each eye to catch any wayward mascara smudges and answers the call before she can chicken out.

She'd been texting Nick, still curled beneath the duvet where she had taken a nap after going to the gym with Liam, and mentioned that she was in for the night. Nick suggested Skype, and Louis had agreed before she had time to really think it through. She hasn't seen Nick since Harry's birthday party, and they've been texting, sure, but mostly silly, lighthearted nonsense. Not since the very first time Nick replied and requested an apology have either of them mentioned that Louis completely ran away after they spent the night together.

But Louis smiles when Nick appears on her screen, her hair in a messy topknot and an oversized knit jumper slipping off one shoulder. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," she says with a teasing smile.

"Are you saying you've missed me?"

Nick shrugs a slender shoulder. "You are nice to look at." She grins at Louis' snort of laughter, then softens. "I have missed you."

"We'll be finished with this leg of the tour in a week," Louis says, "and then I'll be in London for a while."

"It's not just been the tour," Nick says, almost too soft to be heard.

Louis sucks in a breath. "We're talking about that, are we?" she asks, forcing levity into her voice.

"We don't have to."

"No." Louis shakes her head, eyes darting between the camera and the screen of her laptop. "We should."

"All right."

She looks down at her hands in her lap and starts picking at the blue polish she's wearing; it's a tick that makes Lou crazy, but Louis maintains that it's better than biting her nails like she did up until X Factor.

"Why didn't you come to lunch?" Nick asks after a long moment.

"I didn't know what I was going to say when I saw you," Louis answers, shifting restlessly.

"Because we had sex."

"Yes."

"And you regretted it?"

"No!"

Nick blinks like she's startled. "No?"

"No," Louis says again, soft. "I didn't regret it. I don't. It just...was a lot." Nick waits, her head tilted just slightly to the left. The stud in her earlobe catches the light every now and again, winking bright. "I hadn't done that since I was seventeen, before...everything."

"Everything," Nick repeats with a grin. "That's understating it a bit, innit?"

Louis manages a smile with her shrug. "I just...I thought I was done with that part of my life."

"The casual sex part?"

Something twists uncomfortably in Louis' chest at that. "The part where it was with a girl," she makes herself say. "I had decided that I was done with that part."

"And now you don't think you are?"

"No." Louis shakes her head slowly. "No, I don't think I am."

"That's okay," Nick says, her voice gentle, filled with something like understanding, but Louis knows that she doesn't understand, because Louis isn't saying what she needs to say.

"I think that...maybe--" She cuts herself off with a frustrated noise, eyebrows drawing together as she looks pleadingly at Nick, right there on the screen in front of her and thousands of miles away in London. "It was never like that with Alexander, never, and I loved him, and it turned out that he's fucking terrible, but--"

"Louis," Nick interrupts, cutting off Louis' desperate babbling.

"It wasn't the sex," she says after she's taken a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. "The next morning was so nice, and-- It's you. I ran away from you."

"Oh. That's." Nick swallows hard even as Louis starts shaking her head. "Well--"

"No, I mean. I ran away because I _like_ you, and it scared the fuck out of me." She shakes her head again. All this time she's thought that she was freaked out because Nick is a girl, and Louis decided that she wasn't going to be with girls, and that's a little bit of it, yes, but what really scares her is how _much_ she likes Nick, and how fast it all happened.

But Louis isn't ready to give that much of herself away just yet.

"Do you think we can start over?"

Nick's mouth opens and closes, then, "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Go on a date with me? A proper date, where we both know that's what it is."

"A date." Nick pauses, considering, a moment that stretches agonizingly for Louis. "All right."

"Yes?" Louis asks, because she needs to be sure.

"Yes." Her eyes are bright. "It's a date."

*

In the van to the arena the next day, Louis scoots close to Niall's side, taking her hand and weaving their fingers together. She waits until the other girls are distracted - Zayn is reading on her Kindle while Harry and Liam bicker about whether lions or cheetahs are the better big cats - before leaning in to press her lips to the side of Niall's neck, just beneath her ear.

"What's doin'?" Niall asks softly, tangling her fingers in the messy ends of Louis' hair.

"Nick and I are going on a date."

"Yeah? Did you ask her?"

"Yeah."

Niall turns her head to kiss Louis' temple. "Good."

*

Louis finds that getting ready for her date with Nick isn't quite the same as getting ready for dates with Alexander. Sure, the motions are the same - shower, makeup, hair, changing her mind twice about what to wear, trying to talk herself into wearing heels before saying _fuck it_ and sliding on a pair of flats - but it feels entirely different. The excitement bubbling just beneath her skin, anticipation that sets something aflutter in the cage of her ribs. She's missed it, and it's not until she feels it again that she realizes.

Maybe it felt like this in the beginning with him, she thinks, clasping a bracelet around her wrist, fingers trembling just the slightest bit. If it did, she doesn't remember, and she's not inclined to try too hard, given how it all turned out.

Louis arrives at the restaurant first, a place Niall recommended (which means the food will be great) after Bressie brought her (which means that the staff will be discreet). She sips water nervously and tries to ignore the niggling voice in her head with its worries that Nick will stand her up.

Alexander did that once, not long before he broke things off, left her to sit waiting at a restaurant that he'd said he wanted to try. She'd waited for him for a half hour, sipping wine and affecting an unworried expression, until he finally replied to her texts with a half-hearted excuse and no apology. She'd been humiliated, but too proud to show it, she'd asked Alberto to join her for dinner. He was new to their security team then, but that night he became her favorite; he'd listened to her chatter about football, asked questions about her family, and never once behaved as if their dinner was anything other than a meal between new friends. From that day forward, he became her first choice whenever she had to take security with her somewhere.

She's aware of him now, seated alone at a table nearby, likely watching the door for Nick as closely as Louis herself is.

Nick doesn't make her wait long, arriving just a few minutes late in dark cropped skinny jeans, heels, and a blazer over a low-cut vest that Louis thinks Harry has as well. Her hair is loose, wild and curly around her shoulders, and she offers Louis an apologetic smile when she leans down to press a kiss to her cheek.

"I'm so sorry," she says, sliding into the chair across from Louis'. "I'm chronically late for everything that isn't work, no matter how hard I try."

"I'll remember that," Louis says.

"Do." Nick spares a smile for their waiter, accepting a menu and leaning forward a bit. "You look lovely."

Louis' cheeks pink faintly, and it's silly, that such a low-key compliment can make her blush, but it does.

"How did you hear about this place?" Nick asks, glancing over top of her menu.

"Niall. Bressie brought her."

Nick hums. "Have they gotten their shit together then?"

"No," Louis laughs. "Not yet."

"One at a time, maybe," Nick murmurs, just loud enough for Louis to hear, her eyes trained on the menu in front of her.

Louis hides her smile in her water glass.

Their conversation is as it ever was before as they talk over their meal, which is to say that it's easy, peppered with fond insults and lighthearted bickering. They drink wine and eat rustic French food while they talk about fashion week and Dubai, Nick's upcoming holiday and Louis' plans to bring her oldest sisters on tour with her for their birthdays. They trade bites of their desserts - Louis' pear tatin for Nick's chocolate tart.

"It's good," Nick says with a half shrug. "But I've never understood ordering fruit for dessert when there's chocolate."

"There's more to the world than chocolate, Nick," Louis admonishes.

"Sure," Nick agrees easily. "There's wine and cheese and potatoes, too."

Louis shakes her head and eats the last bite of her dessert without comment, sitting back in her chair to watch while Nick does the same. The silence stretches between them, not uncomfortably, while they both sip their wine. "What?" Nick finally asks.

Louis isn't entirely sure what she intends to say when she opens her mouth, but, "I really want to kiss you," is what comes out. She blinks at herself.

"Yeah?" Nick asks, setting her empty wine glass on the table and leaning forward.

And she might not have meant to say it, but god, now that she has, "Yeah."

Nick considers her for a moment. "I have wine at home. We could have another glass and try that kissing thing, yeah?"

"Let's go."

*

"We should probably talk."

Nick hums, nosing at Louis' jaw until she tilts her head, giving Nick a better angle as she kisses a line up to Louis' ear. Louis is in her lap, her knees bracketed around Nick's thighs, where she's been for the better part of a half-hour, their wine glasses abandoned still full. "Should we?"

Louis bites back a whimper when Nick scrapes her teeth over the shell of her ear. "I was awful to you."

"You apologized for that."

Louis isn't sure that she did, really. "I really am sorry, Nick," she says, just to be sure. She tangles her hands in Nick's hair to tip her head back when she makes her way back to Louis' mouth. "And I _really_ like you." Nick hums low in her throat. "A lot. Nick."

"Louis." Nick opens her eyes and blinks hazily. "What do you want?"

And she doesn't think before she opens her mouth, that's why what she says is, "You."

Nick moans, her back arching so that their breasts are pressed together, her hands flexing on Louis' hips. "Fuck, Lou." She leans forward, catching Louis' mouth in a deep, hot kiss. "What do you want?" she repeats, breathing the question into Louis' mouth, rolling her hips up like a question all its own.

And god, Louis wants so much, _so much_ , she does, but right now the only thing she can think to ask for is, "You, Nick. Just you."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm happy to chat about this (or anything else) on [tumblr](http://accidentalambivalence.tumblr.com/).


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